A Toast to the Ramps of Spring

From left: Albert Banta, Sylvia Tsen, Russell Guthrie and Cedric Villar.Credit
Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times

The first wild onions of the season — or ramps, as they are called — are to die-hard food lovers what robins or baseball are to the rest of us: a harbinger of spring. One of the first restaurants in the city to be serving ramps this year is Tarallucci e Vino, an Italianesque wine bar at 15 East 18th Street. “I basically called everyone I knew trying to find them,” said Andrew Welch, the head chef, who eventually scored a batch of ramps from an unnamed forager in South Carolina. That cache, followed by a second from Virginia, caused the restaurant to issue an ecstatic Twitter post two weeks ago: “First ramps of the season!” (The message was concluded by the only-in-the-New-York-food-world hashtag of #omgramps.) So far, Mr. Welch has used his ramps in entrees like the hand-rolled garganelli pasta he was serving the other night with fiddlehead ferns, crushed red pepper and a ramp pesto ($19,) and in appetizers like the one a party of three was enjoying while waiting for a missing fourth person to arrive.

IN THE SEATS Sylvia Tsen, a 45-year-old accountant, who had recently returned — the night before, in fact — from a two-week trip to Jakarta and Australia. Joining Ms. Tsen was her friend and colleague Russell Guthrie, a 48-year-old chief financial officer for the International Federation of Accountants, and Mr. Guthrie’s partner, Albert Banta, 45, a psychologist and psychotherapist. Soon to arrive was yet another friend, Cedric Villar, 38, who works in the wine business.

Photo

Tarallucci e Vino is an Italianesque wine bar at 15 East 18th Street.Credit
Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times

ON THE PLATES For the moment, and in deference to Mr. Villar’s pending arrival, the group shared a couple of dishes. First was that special ramp appetizer, a slice of crispy pork belly served with parsnip purée, beech mushrooms and a ramp pesto ($18). Then came the octopus salad with cannellini beans, radicchio and lemon ($17). On Ms. Tsen’s recommendation, they also drank a bottle of De Angelis Corvi Montepulciano d’Abruzzo ($64).

WHY THEY CAME A well-traveled crew — Ms. Tsen met Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Banta years ago in Amsterdam — the group was trying to spend a little time together now that Ms. Tsen had returned from her trip. “I know it sounds terrible,” she said, “but it’s really hard to find restaurants with good ingredients in New York, especially after coming from Australia, where the wine is great, the meat is all organic, the oysters are fantastic and everything is so fresh. Did I mention that the wine is great in Australia, by the way?” Even though Ms. Tsen picked Tarallucci e Vino because, in her opinion, it always uses fresh ingredients, she had no idea that she and her friends had walked into a rampfest. “Pure coincidence,” she said. “We were just trying to catch up.”

WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT Until he arrived, Mr. Villar’s lateness, for one thing (traffic, naturally), and then the house in northwest Connecticut that Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Banta are currently fixing up. By and by the conversation settled on the subject of a man that Ms. Tsen met in Australia, an artist, it seemed, who had asked her one night if she could — bad date move — explain to him the roots of the financial crisis. “He wanted my opinion as an accountant,” she said. And that opinion was? “It’s all about public choice theory.” O.K., and how was that answer received? “Apparently, his eyes glazed over,” Mr. Banta said.

Correction: April 13, 2014

The “At the Table” column on Page 2 in some editions today, about a meal at Tarallucci e Vino, an Italianesque wine bar at 15 East 18th Street, misstates the surname of a patron who works in the wine business. He is Cedric Villar, not Billars. The error also appears in an accompanying picture caption. The column also misstates part of the name of the organization where Russell Guthrie, another patron, works. It is the International Federation of Accountants, not the Institute of Financial Accountants.

A version of this article appears in print on April 13, 2014, on Page MB2 of the New York edition with the headline: A Toast to the Ramps of Spring. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe